The last day. . . .
He woke late, after a night of bad dreams.
He saw nobody that day, neither the examining magistrate nor his counsel.
The afternoon dragged along slowly and dismally, and the evening came, the murky evening of the cells. . . . He was in a fever. His heart beat in his chest like the clapper of a bell.
And the minutes passed, irretrievably. . . .
At nine o'clock, nothing. At ten o'clock, nothing.
With all his nerves tense as the string of a bow, he listened to the vague prison sounds, tried to catch through those inexorable walls all that might trickle in from the life outside.
Oh, how he would have liked to stay the march of time and to give destiny a little more leisure!
But what was the good? Was everything not finished? . . .